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Wednesday, November 27, 2013

How The Wheels Got Turning

Just over a century ago, steamships, canals, railroads, and the telegraph
were up and running. They were the technological marvels of the 19th
century-- setting the stage for the 20th century. Yet the invention that
would spark a revolution in transportation was a simple two-wheeler.
The bicycle. Its popularity in the 1880's and 1890's spurred interest in
the nation's roads.

On
October 3, 1893, General Roy Stone, a Civil War hero and good roads
advocate, was appointed Special Agent in charge of the new Office of
Road Inquiry (ORI) within the Department of Agriculture. With a budget
of $10,000, ORI promoted new rural road development to serve the wagons,
coaches, and bicycles on America's dirt roads.

At this same time, two bicycle mechanics in Springfield, Massachusetts, the Duryea Brothers,
built the first gasoline-powered "motor wagon" to be operated in the
United States. Lacking any brakes on its historic first run in September
1893, the vehicle was brought to a stop by simply driving it into a
curb. The Duryea Brothers' success was little noted at the time, but it
got the wheels turning for the introduction of the automobile, which
would literally change the landscape of America. (Two other bicycle
mechanics, brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright, would launch the aviation revolution at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in December 1903.)

In 1908, Henry Ford
introduced his low-priced, highly efficient Model T. Its widespread
popularity created pressure for the federal government to become more
directly involved in road development. With rural interests adding to
the battle cry of "Get the farmers out of the mud!" Congress passed the
Federal- Aid Road Act of 1916. It created the Federal-Aid Highway
Program under which funds were made available on a continuous basis to
state highway agencies to assist in road improvements. But before the
program could get off the ground, the United States entered World War I.

Things
took off again in the Roaring 20's when the Bureau of Public Roads
(BPR), as ORI was then called, was authorized by the Federal Highway Act
of 1921 to provide funding to help state highway agencies construct a
paved system of two-lane interstate highways. During the 1930's, BPR
helped state and local governments create Depression-era road projects
that would employ as many workers as possible. When America entered
World War II in 1941, the focus turned toward providing roads that the
military needed. After the war, the nation's roads were in disrepair,
and congestion had become a problem in major cities. In 1944, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt had signed legislation authorizing a network of
rural and urban express highways called the "National System of
Interstate Highways." Unfortunately, the legislation lacked funding. It
was only after President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid
Highway Act of 1956 that the Interstate program got under way.

From
the start, the Interstate System was hailed as the "Greatest Public
Works Project in History"--a challenge embraced by several generations
of highway engineers. But even more challenges were forthcoming. In the
1960's, BPR began to focus increasingly on environmental concerns and on
creating urban road networks that tied into other land-use plans and
transportation options, including mass transit. By 1966, the changing
times prompted legislation to establish the U.S. Department of
Transportation (DOT). When the new department opened in April 1967, BPR,
renamed the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), was one of the
original components.

Throughout
the 1970's and 1980's, FHWA worked with the states to open 99 percent of
the designated 42,800-mile Interstate System--now officially called the
Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.